Just over a month ago we had the BBC telling us that the cold, late spring had devastated the wasp population and now I'm inundated with the little blighters. I caught a couple of hundred in a wasp trap on Sunday afternoon. They're like a plague around my mini-nucs. I don't remember it being this bad for at least 5 years. To add insult to injury there's obviously some robbing going on in one if my apiaries (by bees). Huge excitement outside the hive - but little fighting - and I can't really tell whether these strong colonies are being robbed or doing the robbing. The nucs next to them are - so far at least - untouched.

I have late grafts due to emerge next week and daren't put them into mini-nucs so will split colonies into 3 frame nucs for mating.

Are others seeing more that normal robbing and jaspers?